Best antifouling this year?

[paris]

Morning, my yacht is moored in a swing mooring on the river crouch that drys out twice a day, this year the antifouling has not worked at all which meant I’ve had to scrub her a few times as she was heavily fouled with slime and barnacles, I used Hempel Classic which has worked ok in the past.

I’d be interested to know what others have used and the relative performance.

 

[lustyd]

I use Seajet 033 as it came out top in the YBW testing that they sponsored. It works well enough

 

[Stemar]

On a drying mooring in Portsmouth Harbour, I gave up on antifoul. I'd tried several brands, and they were all a waste of money. Scrubbing off a couple of extra times a year was a simple and cheap solution using club facilities.

Same mooring, new (to me) boat, no different. I tried a hard antifoul recommended for drying moorings this year. She needs a scrub for the second time since April, but the season's almost over, so it can wait until spring now.

 

[Chiara’s slave]

Scrubbing is a fact of life with modern paints. We’ve given up and gone for coppercoat, in the sure and certain knowlege that we’ll need to scrub it. But it comes beautifully clean every time and is no worse for it, and only requires renewing after 10 years or so. So £240 a year, for us. And someone else grovelled under our boat, sanded her and applied it for that.

 

[paris]

Scrubbing is a fact of life with modern paints. We’ve given up and gone for coppercoat, in the sure and certain knowlege that we’ll need to scrub it. But it comes beautifully clean every time and is no worse for it, and only requires renewing after 10 years or so. So £240 a year, for us. And someone else grovelled under our boat, sanded her and applied it for that.

I did look at copper coat, but there are a few at my club that come out equally slimey.

 

[Tranona]

I did look at copper coat, but there are a few at my club that come out equally slimey.

Yes, but it is only slime and washes or scrubs off easily. Rarely if ever get barnacles or weed. Its key benefit is a life of typically 10 years without recoating.

 

[lustyd]

Although it doesn’t fare as well on some boats where there’s a sump and line of sika on the keel since that line is flexible and the copper coat cracks away, leading to rust. Seen several like this while boat shopping and it put me off due to the work to put it right. I would love copper coat but it does need the right boat.

 

[Sailing steve]

Hempel Tiger Extra worked reasonably well in the River Alde for me. but not so well in the Walton Backwaters.
Seajet 033 didn't work that well there either, SML paints Cu Pro was hopeless and their customer service attitude when I discussed exactly how hopeless it was with them left a lot to be desired. Last winter I abandoned ablative antifoul stripped the hull back to gellcoat and applied three coats of Hempel Hard Racing. That worked reasonably well for a few months but more recently I've had to scrub off twice and right now I've got thick slime and weed back again.

Regular scrub offs seem to have become the new normal but contrast that dismal performance from two hundred quids worth of antifoul paint with twenty years or so ago when any tin of mid priced antifoul would keep a hull clean all season and it's immediately clear how badly the leisure boating community is being screwed by both legislation and the paint manufacturers.

 

[neilf39]

If you sit in mud then it affects the antifouling and stops it working. I think there is a reaction. My red antifoul used to go black where it sat in mud and then did not work and everything grew on that bit. Did not matter which sort. Otherwise shogun 033 or tiger extra worked fine for the non muddy bits.

 

[Daydream believer]

Although it doesn’t fare as well on some boats where there’s a sump and line of sika on the keel since that line is flexible and the copper coat cracks away, leading to rust. Seen several like this while boat shopping and it put me off due to the work to put it right. I would love copper coat but it does need the right boat.

Whilst I have 2 coatings of copper coat on the hull I have had 4 on the keel. I have now gone with shogun 033 on the fin keel. With a good primer the shogun works better than the coppercoat & is certainly better on the cast iron fin at holding back rust, The area is only 3.5 M2 & I can abrade & apply it whilst sitting on a chair, I can handle that in a few hours with little effort. I would not be able to work over head doing the whole hull.

 

[oldgit]

An usually large number of boats rehauled out after only a few months (4/5) this year on the Mudway due to considerable amounts of fouling.
Slime under the bow and barnacles to the stern, wondered if this was to do with exposure to sunlight ?
This of course mainly affects boats in the club who actually move, a small minority it would appear.
All types of A/F had been applied, from those who religiously apply two thick coats of the best available, both hard and soft, down to cheapskates like me who put a thin single coat of whatever is being flogged cheaply on ebay. (Shogun 33 past 3 years)
Those with Coppercoat (2 boats) were not immune.
A glance at the waterline yesterday and sure enough another coat of brown slime is accumulating around the waterline.
We are on brackish water with an average tidal flow of 1-2 knots.

As regards drying moorings, my previous boats, all on drying mud berths , never suffered from large amounts of fouling, if any.
Came as a unpleasant suprise when upgrading to a proper grown up mooring on alltide pontoon.
Four times the mooring cost and 4 times the amount of fouling.

Club has both drying and always afloat moorings, the hulls on the smaller drying boats on the inner pontoons, would appear lack any build up of fouling, noticeably when hull exposed to any sunlight for any length of time.
The A/F might go black but almost no growth of any description.

 

[paris]

I suspect it’s going to be the same for all brands, looks like regular scrubbing is required

 

[Sailing steve]

I suspect it’s going to be the same for all brands, looks like regular scrubbing is required

Never used to be so, but what a fortunate regular extra revenue stream for all the yards doing mid season lifts and scrubs.

 

[Daydream believer]

Never used to be so, but what a fortunate regular extra revenue stream for all the yards doing mid season lifts and scrubs.

Bit like the "things were so much better in our day" syndrome
I recall glass jars of red racing copper antifoul paint & my Stella being slipped every 6 weeks or so, for scrubbing on Tucker Brown's slip & the yard men working away with their scrubbing brushes to remove the weed. Then furiously getting another coat of paint on before the tide came in.

 

[Bristolfashion]

Hempel Tiger - it's done very well for me.

 

[Plum]

Morning, my yacht is moored in a swing mooring on the river crouch that drys out twice a day, this year the antifouling has not worked at all which meant I’ve had to scrub her a few times as she was heavily fouled with slime and barnacles, I used Hempel Classic which has worked ok in the past.

I’d be interested to know what others have used and the relative performance.

I too am on the crouch and for the last 5 1/2 years I have been using International 350 applied every other year. 2 coats. Always afloat, not on a drying mooring. The boat stays in for 2 years so I save on haulage fees. I dry out on scrubbing posts 2 or 3 times each year for a very quick scrub but it is mostly slime and comes off easily. Use of the scrubbing posts is free as a resident at Bridgemarsh Marina so overall this is working out as a cost-effective strategy.

 

[langstonelayabout]

SML paints Cu Pro was hopeless and their customer service attitude when I discussed exactly how hopeless it was with them left a lot to be desired.

Indeed, this was my experience with SML’s Cu Pro antifouling last year, even though I managed to apply all 5l to my Konsort. Flipping hopeless.

I also spoke with a ‘yacht maintenance pro’ last year who said that if he needed to get a decent performance antifouling finish on the bottom of his own boat, he would start with a hard antifouling and then overcoat with a soft antifouling, knowing some of the soft would come off during the scrubs. This sounds like it’s worth a try.

This year. The weed has prospered on the bottom of my Konsort. Chances are the top layer of antifouling will be International Micron. Who knows what else will be underneath? (No, not coppercoat. Never again)

 

[jane444blue]

I check with the Hoist guys each year. They know what works for the boats in each part of the river in Lymington. Seems to vary depending on mooring position

 

[Dave 71]

Morning, my yacht is moored in a swing mooring on the river crouch that drys out twice a day, this year the antifouling has not worked at all which meant I’ve had to scrub her a few times as she was heavily fouled with slime and barnacles, I used Hempel Classic which has worked ok in the past.

I’d be interested to know what others have used and the relative performance.

I'm also on the Crouch, in Fambridge, and use Seajet 033, for the same reason as Lustyd, there was a test of a variety of paints in a variety of locations some years ago and Fambridge was one of the locations. It's been OK and works well enough. I usually put a new coat on every year but was a bit lazy and half arsed this year, the old paint looked ok, I did the sides and the keel, left the underside. Mid season pressure wash to get the slime off. Things do seem to be bad this year, warmer water...? Naughty water companies...?

 

[Chiara’s slave]

Whilst I have 2 coatings of copper coat on the hull I have had 4 on the keel. I have now gone with shogun 033 on the fin keel. With a good primer the shogun works better than the coppercoat & is certainly better on the cast iron fin at holding back rust, The area is only 3.5 M2 & I can abrade & apply it whilst sitting on a chair, I can handle that in a few hours with little effort. I would not be able to work over head doing the whole hull.

That’s an interesting approach on your boat. You can presumably scrub most of the hull from the deck, in the water, with the right brush if needed, but not the fin. And part of our rationale for copper coat was the application, or lack of it. We can afford a yard to do our boat once in 10 years, but every year would sting a bit. And though I have a few years advantage on you, I don’t enjoy being under our boat in the cold and dirt with any spillage dripping on me.